PopSyndicate.com

Death comes at Christmas. Don’t forget to leave him cookies and milk.

Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather is the sort of project designed to make fans’ hearts go aflutter. Take one ridiculously long, immensely popular series of fantasy novels (in this case, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series), pick one of the more well-loved and standalone titles, give it the breathing space of a three-hour, two-part miniseries, throw a bunch of classically trained actors and whizz! bang! boom! watch the geeks explode with joy.

It’s a complicated plot, but it boils down to this: the Assassins’ Guild of the Discworld is called upon to assassinate the Hogfather, that merry old piggy soul who delivers presents to all the good girls and boys on Hogswatch (which is, as you might guess, not entirely disimilar to Christmas). To this end, they send their most insane of assassins, Mr. Teatime (played by the reliable Marc Elton) to do the dirty deed. Teatime isn’t able to kill the Hogfather by traditional means, so he quickly sets about making sure that nobody believes in the big oink anymore, ransacking the palace of the Tooth Fairy and controlling the children of the Discworld via their...um...teeth.

Meanwhile, Death (voice of Ian Richardson) has noticed the Hogfather’s disappearance, and decides to take up his mantle as the bearer of gifts. At the same time, Death’s granddaughter, Susan (Michelle Dockery) goes on a quest to find out exactly what has happened to the Hogfather, and how to stop whatever nefarious plans have been set in motion.

If you think this sounds demented, well, you’re right. And like most installments in long-running fantasy series, it depends a lot on your pre-knowledge of most of the characters and locations...or, at very least, an advanced ability to glean and retain information at a superhuman rate. The Discworld novels are popular enough for this to work in a commercial sense, but it tends to leave any newcomers (like me) out in the cold. I spent the better part of an hour just trying to figure out what in hell was going on.

This is not to say the mini-series doesn’t have its perks. There are some fine performances here, with special mention of Marc Elton, who seems to be channeling Johnny Depp’s attempt at Willy Wonka - and improving upon it, actually. In addition, the mere concept of Death making Santa Claus’ Christmassy rounds, and trying just a little too hard at it, is sure to tickle most any viewer’s fancy. The core statement about the powers of belief in imaginary concepts and people has a lot of value, too: what Pratchett’s saying here is, basically, that the world would be a little less wonderful without Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and all the other creations of the childhood mind, and I happen to agree with him. I just wish the story on top of the statement had been a touch more...compact.

There’s also a certain unfortunate aspect that, while there is some very pleasing design work (mostly in the sets), the whole affair boasts a slightly cheap-and-cheerful “plastic colors” look that puts one in mind of a BBC Christmas special produced by the Halmis (those guys behind the ‘90s Hallmark mini-series of The Odyssey, Merlin, The 10th Kingdom, and so on). But then, that’s to be expected...because it’s a British Christmas special produced by the Halmis! Lord of the Rings this is not, but in fairness, it’s probably the best a full-blown fantasy story could ever look on a TV budget. It was clearly a success for Britain’s Sky One channel, too - they’ve just finished broadcasting a follow-up mini-series, The Colour of Magic, based on Pratchett’s first two Discworld novels, with plans for further adaptations.

Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather is available on DVD from our old friends at Genius Entertainment, and in usual Genius style, it’s a really half-baked product. The mini-series looks and sounds good - anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen, good black levels, strong colors, a reasonable if uneventful 5.1 track - but in a really blindingly clever move, Genius has basically ruined the presentation of the series in the most amateur way possible. Yes, “Part 1” and “Part 2” are both available separately from the menu (in fact, only separately - there’s no “Play All"), and both feature full opening credits. So you’re thinking, they’ve maintained the original two-episode presentation, right? Wrong. “Part 1” ends with an abrupt black screen and the on-screen caption “Intermission” - before going straight back to the menu! No closing credits at all. Yet “Part 2” picks up as an entirely separate episode. It’s sloppy and it’s cheap and I’m sick of seeing this sort of thing.

Oh yes, and there aren’t any closed captions or subtitles at all. Boo. Hiss.

The madness isn’t over, though: there are still special features to go through! “Interview with Terry Pratchett” (20 mins) is a very amateurly-edited video interview with Pratchett, who wrote (and continues to write) the Discworld novels. I don’t know why this is shown here in the way it is - not quite raw, but very loosely hacked together. You can hear the interviewer asking questions off-camera, and you can watch as the cameraman zooms and re-frames throughout the piece. Sometimes, the interviewer starts to ask a follow-up question, only to be silenced by an abrupt cut. Worse, the author actually answers a question twice under instruction from the interviewer - why wasn’t the lesser variation cut? There are other cuts in this interview; why not ones that make sense? I would’ve been slaughtered at school for such bad editing and presentation. Thankfully, Pratchett himself is remarkably articulate, coming across as an author who’s put a lot of thought into his world without seeming obsessive or anything less than frank.

Finally, “Hogfather Trailer” (4 mins) is a ridiculously protracted trailer for the miniseries (oh, but it’s anamorphic, so isn’t that nice?). I really can’t see where or in what capacity it would have actually played; possibly Sky One, as a satellite channel, likes to run awkward and over-extenuated trailers between their programs. At least Genius Entertainment hasn’t done anything silly to it, I guess.

I’m not entirely sure where I stand with Hogfather. I’m not particularly familiar with the Discworld books, so I have to judge it on its own merits, and while I find it occasionally very witty, with routinely good performances and a really interesting idea at its core, it does feel very overly complex, and at over three hours it drags more than a little bit. It’s the sort of thing that just feels like a Hallmark Channel co-production, and if you know what I mean, you know what I mean; there’s no other way to explain it. Newcomers like me are probably going to be best advised to go back and read the book instead; dedicated fans of Pratchett’s universe - well, give it a rent. Just don’t expect to be blown away.

2